Story's New Love

Story has a new love!

Anyone care to guess what it is? 

 

Give up?

The girl is in love with mushrooms right now!  Before her bone marrow transplant one of her favorite things to eat was ham and mushroom pizza, but now she doesn't even need anything with the mushrooms.  She just comes up and asks, "Will you saute me some mushrooms?" and then she just eats them by themselves.

On Sunday Devon was watching football, so she and I decided we needed some football food.  We got him to make us some nachos (because he is the best nacho maker EVER!).

She normally is my nacho buddy, but not on Sunday, all she did was pick out the mushrooms!

I would never have thought the five year old's favorite food would have been mushrooms, but I'm not complaining:-) 

Doin' a Little Bakin'

One of the nurses at the hospital gave Story a cookie baking kit, so we decided to try it out today.  She and Cadence had a good time baking the cookies.

 Lyric joined in for the decorating. 

 They had icing, sprinkles, red hots and princess gel pens.

 They turned out beautiful!

 Lyric's gingerbread man for Daddy.  

Being Home

Story has been out of the hospital for little over a month now.  She has pretty much literally been "home" since she left the hospital.  She goes to clinic twice a week, but other than that we are pretty much home.  She can't be around people yet, but she can do things outside.  So, other than clinic we have gone to the park near our house to let the girls ride their bikes a few times.  

The first time we went out was Dec 16th.  Story had gotten a new bike for her birthday and hadn't been able to ride it.  I had the bright idea for us to take the bikes to the park.  It was FREEZING!!!  We lasted about 30 minutes!  On the way back to the car Story said, "Whose dumb idea was this anyway?"  But I did manage to get a few pictures with my shivering hands before we called it quits.

Poor Cadence was sporting the tricycle.  She was trying really hard to keep up with sisters!

 I love this picture of my little stair step girls!  (Don't know if anyone noticed, but the middle child--who doesn't need training wheels anymore--has them.  The new bike came with training wheels and she doesn't want to take them off, too funny!)

They don't look too cold, do they?

 This is about the time when they really started complaining about the cold!

 We did have some excitement... Lyric lost her tooth!

 Towards the end everyone had ditched the bikes.  Devon had Lyric's, I had Story's and sweet Lyric had Cadence's~ that is until she caught up with me.

We took another bike outing on January 5th.  It was a much warmer day--42 degrees.  It actually felt pretty good in the sun.  We even took a picnic.

Cadence had her big girl bike this time.  Much easier to keep up! 

 Story saw this sign and decided she needed to ride under it.  That's Story Bell always the the little dare devil!

 She succeeded.  It was a proud moment:-)

There was a little ice on the ground.

 We found a nice sunny spot for the picnic.

 They look so big!  No more tricycles!

Today was 45 and sunny, so we headed to the park again.  I didn't get any bike shots today, only took a couple of the girls posing. 

Sweet sisters taking a rest on the bench.

Cadence and Story ditched their bikes in the end, so Devon carried one and I had the other.  

I have enjoyed our bike rides at the park, but I have to admit it will be nice to be able to go in public again! 

Wow, What a Difference!

I stumbled across this picture tonight as I sat down to blog.

It was taken on November 14th, just six days after transplant.  I remember going to the playroom to look for a toy and finding this crown.  Story loved it!  I was trying to take her picture, but the look in the picture was all she would give me--no smiles.  I remember telling her to smile and she said she couldn't.  The mouth sores were so bad this is as close as she could come to a smile!  Fast forward to January 15th,  sixty-eight days after transplant and this is the smile you get:

AMAZING!

Homesick--Contagious?

I just walked by the playroom and heard the girls playing Barbies.  This is what I heard:

Lyric: "Well we will have to see our kids."

Story: "I don't have any kids."

Lyric: "Yes, we all do.  Remember, they all went to college?  But then they all got home sick and had to come home."

Story: "I guess it was contagious."

Lyric just laughed.

Note to self, Story knows what contagious is, but doesn't know anything about being homesick:-)

Christmas 2010

Well, we had Christmas.  But I'm a  loser who doesn't really think ahead of time about things like batteries.  We got a few pictures before the batteries went dead.  

The girls all got musical instruments this year.  Story got a keyboard, Lyric a guitar and Cadence got a drum.  

They also got a new craft table.  

I was really surprised by how late Story slept.  She didn't get us all up until about 7:30.

Story was showing off her new candy cane lip gloss.

The girls had a good time trying out the keyboard.

One of Cadence's favorite gifts was a He Man DVD (thanks Jones family!).

The other girls moved on to other presents, but Cadence was still mesmerized by He Man!

They got their gifts open and were checking them out and she was still checking out the He Man DVD!

Grammy and Bob came to town on Christmas day.  

We all enjoyed a beautiful white Christmas.

 It was a first for us all.

Joey Needs Medical Attention

Story is on TPN and lipids for her nutrition here at home like she was in the hospital.  Tonight, Lyric was doing some major medical work on Joey the gorilla.

She got a bag and filled it with scrapes of paper for his TPN.  She connected two straws to make the tubing.

  

He had to have a dressing on his chest with tubies for the TPN to hook up to. 

 He also had a feeding tube.

Luckily Joey is doing much better now.  He is off of the TPN just like Story.

Home Sweet Home!

Today was the big day!  Story was released from the hospital.  We were there a total of 42 days.  She had her bone marrow biopsy this morning and we packed it up and headed out this afternoon.

She got tired of waiting on Daddy to load us up, so she decided to take a seat with all the stuff.

 We filled up two carts like this one, plus Devon and I had both of our hands full.

 We asked Ms Amanda, the child life educator, to get our picture before we headed out the door.  It was very strange all being in the car together for the first time.

 Story Bell was happy to be home!

Happy 5th Birthday Story Bell

Today we celebrated Story's 5th birthday.  We really wanted to be able to celebrate at home, but it just didn't work out.  

She and I decorated the room before Daddy and sisters arrived.  Only being allowed two visitors at a time made things kind of tricky.

Cadence REALLY wanted to go in first, so she came in for awhile and gave Story her present.

Story wanted to do her cake with Daddy and Lyric, so Cadence and I went out and let them come in.

They had cake, opened presents and played.

 Lyric and Story did a photo shoot.  Lyric was the photographer.  She told Story how to pose.

 Here she is with Birthday Bear that Daddy gave her.

 In this one she has Birthday Bear, the baby doll Cadence gave her and the Tiana doll that Lyric gave her.

Daddy and Lyric accompanied Story down to have her X-ray (she gets one every Sunday).  Overall, I think Miss Story Bell enjoyed her "party."   It was snowing pretty hard outside, so Daddy and sisters left a little earlier than they had planned.  They didn't want to get stuck at the hospital.

Happy Birthday Big Girl!

Love This Picture!

Lyric came to visit today.  i just love this picture of them!  I love the way Lyric looks so grown up, with her blue fingernails and the way she is holding Story's head.  Story looks so small in her sisters arms:-)